


and even though i'm breaking, at least i feel something

by knoxoursavior



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blow Jobs, Intercrural Sex, M/M, Porn with Feelings, Post-Time Skip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:48:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25203463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knoxoursavior/pseuds/knoxoursavior
Summary: Keiji finds him waiting in the alley behind the bookstore. Half his face is shrouded in shadow and he has a black cap on his head, but Keiji recognizes him all the same.
Relationships: Akaashi Keiji/Kuroo Tetsurou
Comments: 5
Kudos: 59





	and even though i'm breaking, at least i feel something

**Author's Note:**

> set post-time skip where akaashi is an editor and kuroo is doing uhh smth? tagged as canon divergence since he probably.. didn't really disappear..... maybe

Keiji finds him waiting in the alley behind the bookstore. Half his face is shrouded in shadow and he has a black cap on his head, but Keiji recognizes him all the same.

“Akaashi,” Kuroo greets. Just like that. Like he didn't just disappear two years ago.

Keiji feels anger rising in him already, and Kuroo has only said one word to him.

“What are you doing here?” 

“Waiting for you.”

And there's Kuroo's goddamned smirk again. _Two years._ Keiji hasn't missed it one bit. Hasn't missed the feeling of wanting to punch Kuroo in the face because of it either.

“That's not what I meant,” he says, and he hates the way he sounds. Annoyed. Seething. Exactly the way that he feels.

Kuroo shrugs. “I heard you were in town.”

Keiji narrows his eyes at Kuroo. _Bullshit._

His hands curl into fists at his sides, and his jaw is clenched almost painfully. He feels his anger threatening to spill and he lets it.

“You know who else comes here? Bokuto, for his games. But you never contacted him, did you?” Keiji says. “And _suddenly,_ it's so important to keep in touch that you went out of your way to come here.”

Kuroo doesn't even react the way he wants him to. Doesn't give Keiji anything beyond a frown and a slight crease between his eyebrows. His eyes are cold; it's a familiar sight. Keiji remembers seeing it from the other side of the net, but they're not on the court now. There is nothing separating them but the space that Keiji carefully maintains between them.

“I'm just here to ask you out for a drink, Akaashi. If you don't want to, then I'll gladly leave you alone,” Kuroo says, and Keiji hates it. Hates that Kuroo thinks it's alright to just show up out of nowhere and upend Keiji's world like that.

But what he hates the most is that he's going to say yes. Because he never really got used to missing Kuroo. Because even now, with Kuroo right in front of him, Keiji still misses him. 

“Fine,” Keiji says. “But you're paying.”

“Fine,” Kuroo says, rolling his eyes. And then he starts walking, and Keiji starts following him.

The sight of Kuroo's back is familiar, but the details are different. He's a little bit wider. A denim jacket over his shoulders instead of a sweat-drenched shirt sticking to his skin. Keiji wants to reach out and touch him, but he's terrified of crossing the space in between them. Terrified of the slight possibility that if he does, then Kuroo will vanish. Terrified that he might miss Kuroo so much, he's gone mad with it.

Keiji walks three steps behind Kuroo. He forces himself to be content with it.

Eventually, they come to a stop in front of a three-story building in a residential area. No bar in sight. Kuroo pauses at the entrance to pet the tabby cat napping there.

“This doesn't look like a bar,” Keiji says. He watches as the cat wakes up and mewls, pushing up against Kuroo's fingers scratching at the top of its head.

Kuroo looks over his shoulder at Keiji. “It isn't. It's my apartment.”

Keiji grits his teeth. “Kuroo. Why did you bring me to your apartment?” 

Kuroo stands, faces Keiji with this unreadable expression that Keiji despises. “Because I haven't seen you in forever and I want to kiss you.”

_And whose fault is that?_ Keiji wants to ask. He wasn't the one who left, but the way Kuroo said it— _fuck._ His chest hurts and his eyes sting and he feels like if he tries to speak now, he'd regret it.

He turns to leave, but Kuroo catches him easily with a hand around his arm.

“Akaashi,” he says, and Keiji hates it. Hates that he missed his name on Kuroo's tongue. Hates that he doesn't really want to leave. 

“You think I'm just going to let you kiss me, just like that?”

He doesn't look at Kuroo, no matter how much he wants to. He feels Kuroo's grip loosen before Kuroo's hand drops. It should feel like a victory, no matter how small, but it doesn't.

Keiji could leave right now, but he doesn't. 

“No,” Kuroo says. “I know I don't deserve it, but even then—even then I can't help but hope that you still want me too.” 

Keiji scrunches his eyes shut. What is he supposed to do with that? _Really,_ what is he supposed to say in response to that?

He should leave like Kuroo did. Walk away without explanation like Kuroo did. But he doesn't, because he is a fool and thus he is foolishly sentimental. Foolishly infatuated still, even after years of nothing. Years of a clean break that hardly left him untarnished.

He turns. He faces Kuroo, shaking.

“Fuck you,” he says, and he knows those two words can't contain all the grief, all the resentment that he's built up those two years, but they're enough to make Kuroo's eyes wide, to make him step back. And that—that isn't what Keiji wants, in the end.

He crosses the space between them, reaching out as he does. His hand curls around Kuroo's wrist, and it feels like a shock, feels like a wake-up call, a confirmation. Kuroo is _here,_ and despite all the hurt he's caused, Keiji already feels his defenses crumbling away.

Even worse, Keiji still wants to kiss him. He _is_ a fool. 

Keiji deflates, his shoulders hunching, a sigh leaving his lips. He squeezes around Kuroo's wrist and wishes he'd slipped his fingers in between Kuroo's instead.

“Come on then,” Keiji says. “Take me up to your apartment.”

Kuroo only looks at him for a moment, and Keiji looks back. He doesn't know what Kuroo is looking for, doesn't know what Kuroo finds, but then the next thing he knows, Kuroo is already pulling him into the building.

Then nothing matters but the sight of Kuroo's back, the determined set of his shoulders, the hair peeking out from under his cap, shorter than Keiji remembers. _Huh._ He must have cut it.

Keiji wants to reach out and touch, to run his fingers up Kuroo's nape and into his hair to see how it feels against his fingertips. Prickly, maybe, like freshly shaved hair. Or soft still, like it was before.

And when the door to Kuroo's apartment closes behind him, the first thing that he does is to knock Kuroo's hat off his head. It clatters to the floor, and Keiji is left with the sight of Kuroo—hair cut shorter than in high school, the sides shaved closer to his head.

He feels his breath leave him, says, dazed, “You really did fix your stupid haircut.”

Kuroo raises an eyebrow. “Is that really all you have to say, Akaashi?” 

Keiji mirrors him, raises an eyebrow right back. “What, then?”

“That I look handsome?” Kuroo says. 

Keiji intends on telling him the exact opposite. He thinks of fueling the spark of anger still residing in his chest. And then he thinks of taking Kuroo's teasing tone and throwing it right back at him. But instead of vitriol, instead of good humor, instead of something that makes _sense,_ all that leaves his mouth is, “I missed you.”

It's a punch to the gut. More painful than the anger that ran through his veins just earlier. The only consolation is that Kuroo seems as hurt by it as Keiji is. Kuroo recoils for a brief moment, and then—

There's an arm around his shoulders and a hand carefully placed against his cheek. Suddenly, Kuroo is so, _so_ close and Keiji doesn't know if he wants to pull Kuroo closer or push him away. 

But he came up here, didn't he? He's a fool, isn't he?

Slowly, Keiji reaches back. Cautiously, he presses his palms against Kuroo's waist. Deliberately, he repeats, “I missed you.”

Kuroo presses his forehead against Keiji's. This close, Keiji sees how tightly his eyes are shut, how brutal the set of his jaw is.

“Fuck. Akaashi.”

His words are brittle as they roll off his tongue, as if one breath of Keiji's could destroy them. Destroy _Kuroo._

It takes nothing and everything to close the distance between them. Kuroo's lips feel exactly like Keiji remembers. He thought the memories forgotten, thought that they'd eroded into nothing as time passed. But now, they come back in full force, a tidal wave crashing onto him. Overwhelming.

Kuroo's tongue slips into his mouth and he welcomes it. Kuroo's hand slides from his shoulder to the back of his neck, and Keiji responds in kind, his grip tightening around Kuroo's waist as Keiji grinds against him. Kuroo's moan is muffled against his lips, but it's staggering nonetheless. Beautiful, almost. Keiji wants to hear even _more._

He has missed this feeling. Holding power over someone just as they do over him. Give and take and push and pull in equal portions.

Kuroo pulls away, and Keiji has to fight not to follow like an errant ship being dragged into a current.

“Let me take care of you?” Kuroo says, and the way his eyes are wide, the way his lips are parted, the way his breaths are just a little bit ragged—

Kuroo _wants_ this, and Keiji wants nothing more in the world right now than to let him do whatever he wishes.

“Yes,” Keiji says, and he's rewarded with another kiss. A kiss that's short and sweet, wonderful but not enough to either quell or to add fuel to the heat that's been slowly building in his stomach. 

But then Kuroo goes down onto his knees. Pulls Keiji's cock out and wraps his lips around the head as he wraps his hand around the base. The feeling of Kuroo's mouth around him is familiar, and more so the feeling of Kuroo's tongue teasing just underneath the head of his cock, exactly where it makes Keiji gasp—

He wonders if he's going mad. He looks down at Kuroo—Kuroo, whose eyes still flutter closed when he takes more of Keiji's cock into his mouth, whose tongue still presses relentlessly against the underside of Keiji's cock, whose hands still curl around Keiji's cock just tightly enough, just _right._

There's hope building in Keiji's chest. Hope that in those two years apart, Kuroo thought about him as much as Keiji thought of Kuroo. Hope that Kuroo really _did_ miss him. Hope that Kuroo really does want him even now. And it doesn't make sense, because Kuroo has said these things, implied them. And yet Keiji still aches for assurance, for Kuroo to make him feel valued, missed, _desired._

Maybe Keiji really is a fool. He knows how to stand by himself. He knows independence, knows self-reliance. He thinks that he didn't let his world crumble away into nothing when Kuroo disappeared, and yet now, his return feels like the sun's gentle warmth against Keiji's skin after too many days stuck inside his apartment. Feels like waking up after the first night of rest in a very long while. It feels like the world is suddenly right again, when he's been telling himself for so long that nothing was _wrong._

“Kuroo,” he breathes. Kuroo looks up at him, and Keiji feels his knees buckle just a little bit at the sight of Kuroo—lips still stretched around his cock, cheeks flushed such a pretty shade of red that Keiji wants to lick a stripe along his cheekbone to see if he tastes as good as he looks.

Keiji feels all of seventeen years old again, half-consumed by his unexplainable, uncontainable want. Drawn to Kuroo like a moth to a flame. He had no reason to believe he'd be burned then, but he knows better now. He _should_ know better, at least, and yet he's here, cock in Kuroo's mouth, wanting him still.

Fuck it. He'll take everything Kuroo will give him. If Kuroo decides to leave him again after today, then Keiji wants to know that he'd at least gotten everything that he could from Kuroo.

He threads his fingers in Kuroo's hair, tugs and tugs until Kuroo gets off his cock. Until Kuroo can look up at him, gaze unfocused, lips shining with spit. Keiji bends down to kiss him, to take all of Kuroo's attention for himself once again.

“Kuroo,” he says, and he delights in the sound of Kuroo's shaky breaths, the way Kuroo's gaze breaks, distracted by Keiji's lips. “Please. I want you.”

“How do you want me?” Kuroo asks.

“Over me. Around me. I don't know,” Keiji says. He wants so many things that he doesn't quite know what to say. He wants two years with Kuroo to make up for the time they've lost. And then two more years after that, and another, and another, until he stops wanting Kuroo and Kuroo stops wanting him. If they'll ever stop. Keiji has so much _want_ in him that he finds it difficult to quantify it, or even describe it. But he doesn't even know if Kuroo will still be with him tomorrow, so he settles on the next best thing. “I want to feel you everywhere.”

Kuroo's hand shakes when he reaches up to grab hold of Keiji's arm.

“Okay,” he says. He pulls himself up, wraps his arms around Keiji's shoulders. When he speaks again, his breath tickles Keiji's ear, sending a shiver up his spine. “Okay, Akaashi.”

Kuroo leads Keiji to his bed, and immediately, Keiji presses himself against Kuroo, takes off his jacket and his shirt with shaking hands and takes his cock out of his pants with a confidence Keiji isn't quite sure is real or not.

But then Kuroo is pushing him down, and Keiji lets him. Keiji lies there as Kuroo takes his clothes off one by one. As Kuroo trails kisses along the skin that he's exposing little by little. Keiji's cock is carefully avoided, carefully untouched, but it's alright because Kuroo is _here_ and every touch of his feels like a revelation, every kiss a reminder that Keiji would choose this again and again.

“You're so beautiful,” Kuroo murmurs against his hip. “Still so beautiful.”

_Wasn't I beautiful enough for you to stay?_ Keiji wants to ask. He doesn't.

“Then fuck me,” he says instead. “If you think I'm beautiful, make me feel it.”

Kuroo looks up at him, eyebrows furrowed, lips twisted into a frown, as if Keiji has said something wrong. Keiji feels his eyes sting, feels his lower lip trembling as he opens his mouth to—to ask Kuroo what's wrong? To take back his words? He doesn't know, really, but then Kuroo moves up to take Keiji's face in his hands, kisses him so sweetly that Keiji can almost forget his worry.

“Okay,” Kuroo says, and then suddenly, Kuroo has pulled him up, flipped him over so he's on his knees, so he has Kuroo behind him. And now the world works with him—gravity bringing Kuroo closer to him without Keiji having to work for it or having to worry about it. 

And now, it's not just Kuroo's hands and lips and tongue on him, not just three points of heat and utter ruin. Suddenly, they are skin-to-skin—Kuroo's chest to his back, Kuroo's chin to his shoulder, Kuroo's lips to his cheek. Suddenly, it feels like Kuroo is _everywhere_ and Keiji's cock is painfully hard at the thought of it. 

It's everything that Keiji wanted, everything that Keiji asked for. Or—almost everything. Because he also asked Kuroo to fuck him, and he is breathless with anticipation, breathless with want, and he wants Kuroo so much that it _hurts._

“Kuroo—” Keiji cuts himself off with a gasp, a shiver that wracks his entire body as Kuroo curls a hand against his throat and wraps an arm around his waist, keeping him close. And then Kuroo's cock is sliding in between his thighs, and Kuroo lets out a soft groan right into Keiji's ear, enough to make Keiji arch his back and buck his hips, but— “ _Kuroo,_ I want you in me. Please?” 

“Later,” Kuroo says. “I promise.”

Keiji wants to believe him. Wants to believe that this will last more than a few frantic, treasured moments.

“Kuroo,” he whines, but even then, he presses his thighs closer together, squeezes until the pressure of Kuroo's cock against his thighs is just right, just enough that he finally coaxes a moan from Kuroo's lips.

“That's good, Akaashi. You're so beautiful, so good,” Kuroo says, and then he starts to rock against Keiji, slow, short strokes that build up into something frenzied, something desperate. 

Keiji feels like he's about to cry. Like he's about to shatter and break into little pieces, irreparable. He wonders, if Kuroo leaves him again, whether or not he could pick himself back up like he did before. He feels like he wouldn't be able to. Feels like this would be the end, one way or another. There wouldn't be anything left in him to wait or to hope or to want.

And that—

Keiji doesn't want that. He wants _this._ He wants Kuroo. Kuroo, who has wrapped himself around Keiji like he asked him to. Kuroo, who presses kisses to Keiji's cheek and murmurs sweet things into Keiji's ear like he means them.

Kuroo, who left so suddenly two years ago, who came back, just as sudden. Keiji would wonder once again if this were real, if perhaps hope has burrowed too deep into his psyche and eaten him from the inside out, but Kuroo's body is heavy as it presses down on him and Kuroo's cock is firm as it pushes in between Keiji's thighs.

Keiji can't see Kuroo, but he _feels_ him, and it's enough. It's enough until it's too much, and then Keiji is coming with Kuroo's name on his lips. 

He's barely aware of what happens next, barely aware of himself, but he clings onto the feeling of Kuroo's skin against his, the sound of Kuroo's voice in his ear. He feels like he's drowning in the ocean, everything muffled around him, until he hears Kuroo say his name and he's able to find his way up to the open air again.

The next thing he knows, he's lying back down on the bed and Kuroo is beside him. His hand is curled against Keiji's cheek, wet with more than sweat and spit.

Oh.

“You okay?” Kuroo asks. 

Keiji doesn't know the answer. Is it yes because Kuroo is here? No because Kuroo might leave him again? Instead of answering, he takes Kuroo's hand from his cheek and twines their fingers together.

Kuroo takes the hint, says instead, “So, you're an editor, huh?”

Keiji frowns. “It's unfair that you know about me, but I don't know anything about you.”

“Have I changed that much?”

Kuroo's lips curl up into a smile. It isn't entirely genuine, or at least Keiji thinks so. But he isn't sure if he can read Kuroo so well anymore, just like he isn't sure what the answer to Kuroo's question is.

He squeezes Kuroo's hand in his, asks, “What _have_ you been up to?” 

“Oh, you know,” Kuroo says. He doesn't even have the decency to look sorry about deflecting.

Keiji narrows his eyes at him. “I really don't.”

But again, instead of giving him a straight answer, Kuroo deflects. 

“Bokuto's doing well. I watch all his games. And I read all the manga you're involved with.”

Keiji feels anger rising in him. He is sated but tired— _exhausted,_ really, from travelling, seeing Kuroo again. Finally succumbing to all the feelings that he's been running away from for so long. He has given himself fully to Kuroo, hoping for the same in return, but, _ah,_ he's forgotten Kuroo's stubborn streak.

Perhaps Kuroo hasn't changed much after all.

Keiji feels anger rising in him, and he lets it envelop his words as they come out. Poison on his tongue. 

“That's great, Kuroo. Maybe you could also pick up your phone sometimes and give us a call.”

Kuroo's expression goes blank before it crumbles. But Keiji doesn't see what it becomes because Kuroo brings their hands to his face and hides behind them.

They stay that way for a beat, and another, and another. Keiji doesn't let himself wonder if he's ruined everything for himself. He feels Kuroo press a kiss to his skin.

“Sorry. I deserved that,” Kuroo says. His breath is hot against the back of Keiji's hand. “But I—well, I'm going back to Tokyo.”

Keiji freezes. He feels hope building in his chest and he knows that it could destroy him, if it is left for so long that it rots.

Keiji tugs at their hands until Kuroo stops hiding and looks back at him again.

“Kuroo. If you're lying to me, I swear—”

“I'm not,” Kuroo says. His eyes are clear and his grip on Keiji is tight. He seems like he's telling the truth, and Keiji wants to believe him. Keiji is tired of waiting and tired of hoping, but he's also tired of doubting.

He bows his head closer to Kuroo, presses his lips against Kuroo's knuckles in a soft kiss. An olive branch.

“Okay,” he says. “I believe you.”

**Author's Note:**

> find me on [twt](http://twitter.com/singeiji)!


End file.
